In December of 1999, U.S. authorities had apprehended Ahmed Ressam, an
al-Qaida affiliate who had attempted to enter the country across the Canadian
border in Port Angeles, Washington. This man's equipment, 200 pounds of
fertilizer, four timing devices, and two jars of liquid, suggested that
he had been plotting to assail the Los Angeles International Airport on
New Year's Day of 2000. Thanks to the expediency and foresight manifested
by the U.S. border guards, a horrendous act of murder had been averted.

That is the proper function of border guards, to exhibit discrimination
in granting admittance based on objectively identifiable threats. Terrorism
is not a perceived offense, nor is it merely in the eye of the
beholder. It is a genuine harm resulting in massive death and devastation.
It possesses objective indicators as well. A man carrying materials for
the manufacture of a bomb may rightly be interpreted as a menace. Judging
by his actions, he is one.

What must not be deemed a threat, however, and what Canadian border guards
on October 3, 2002, had misconstrued as one, are expressions of free speech.
A right to free speech is a necessary extrapolation upon man's identity
as a rational being. Because man's individual thoughts can yield survival
and prosperity for him in his life, he ought to be permitted to exercise
them. A manifestation of free speech is a declaration of value,
which is a consideration of facts of reality as they relate to the well
being of the individual agent. So had the Ayn Rand Institute in its series
of informative commentaries, "In
Moral Defense of Israel" (PDF format), expressed values that
it recommends for the entire country to adopt as ones that are conductive
to its utmost rational self-interests. This proud author has read the
articles and finds them thoroughly compelling advice for the granting
of unequivocal moral and military support for the bastion of the West
in a region of repressive theocracies.

Here is a quote from "Israel Has a Moral Right to Its Life"
by Yaron Brook and Peter Schwartz. "We should be supporting Israel's
right to take whatever military action is needed to defend itself against
its nihilistic enemies. Morally and militarily, Israel is America's frontline
in the war on terrorism. If America is swayed by Arafat's latest empty
rhetoric, and allows him to continue threatening Israel, our own campaign
against terrorism becomes sheer hypocrisy and will, ultimately, fail."
Ultimately, this statement recognizes that the survival of this nation's
freedoms against the menace of terror and our continuation of leading
the life proper to man (i.e. one which does not impose totalitarian shackles
upon the autonomous entity that is the individual) depend upon an unwavering
display of fortitude in support of our crucial ally and trade partner,
instead of granting moral sanction and deceiving labels to a tyrant, Yasser
Arafat, who systematically lures his people into the quagmire of antagonism,
martyrdom, and suffering.

To think that this expression of solidarity with America, Israel,
and Individuality was interpreted as "hate propaganda" by the
politically correct bureaucrats of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency!
The profound articles were en route to an Objectivist club in the University
of Toronto as part of a campaign to enhance their publicity and availability
to thinking men whose self-interests such materials are bound to serve.
Instead of receiving the intellectual resources, Mr. Ray Girn, the president
of the club, obtained a letter from the CCRA, stating, "The following
goods have been detained for a determination of tariff classification
as they may constitute obscenity or hate propaganda." What sacrilegious
expressions are contained in the assertion that one's freedoms have a
right to exist? What hatred is displayed in works that stir just retaliation
against depraved aggressors for the purpose of ensuring peace in our time?
Must men keep silent while Arafat warps the Palestinian mass media to
portray Jews in the same light of wickedness unheard of since the days
of the Third Reich? Must politically correct knuckleheads jam their teeth
together in terrorized angst, not because suicide bombers are weekly detonating
innocent civilians but because a rowdy Palestinian street ruffian, a prime
candidate for a suicide bomber, had been shot by Israeli soldiers asserting
their moral right to self-defense and life?

The genuine quest for liberty and security is being stifled, while the
racist, anti-Zionist, man-hating rhetoric of Arafat continues to pervade
universities, including Canadian ones. Dr. Yaron Brook, Executive Director
of the Ayn Rand Institute, had remarked on this, stating, "It is
shameful that an attempt to defend Israel on moral grounds would be considered
for censorship while anti-Israel literature can be found in any bookstore
and anti-Israel rhetoric can be heard on any college campus." Apparently,
the Canadian border guards experience no problem with Palestinian textbooks
stating (falsely) that a duty of a loyal Muslim is the hatred of Jews.
What more circumstantial tripe can be found that fully fits the definition
of hate propaganda, as targeting "a religious, ethnic, or racial
group"? And why is it tolerated while the desire to eradicate the
armed doctrine of racism using the only functional means, retaliatory
force, is silenced and detained?

A hint may arise from the fact that the box had merely been labeled as
containing literature from the Ayn Rand Institute, also stating the title
of the article series. Dr. Brook suggests an alarming possibility: "Either
Canadian Customs chose to detain the brochures because they opened the
package and didn't like what they read, or worse, they detained the brochures
simply because they disagree with any defense of Israel." Disagree
they may, as it is their freedom of speech, but censor they may not. Censorship
of intellectual arguments, of expressions of free speech that do not advocate
racial hatred nor circumstantially-based violence nor initiation
of aggression of any manner, holds an implicit denial of man's rights,
stating that man is not rational, that he therefore cannot be permitted
to select using the conclusions of his thinking mind and the data of reality
as his warrant, that the imposition of brute force and regulatory restrictions
is the only means of placing him upon the proper moral path. This was
precisely the philosophy of the draconian Taliban in Afghanistan, who
had barred all forms of media as a potential source for disagreement with
the dominant orthodoxy. This is precisely the mindset behind Yasser Arafat's
PLO forces staging mob assaults on harmless Israeli settlers or beating
political dissenters who may have committed so little "offense"
as to have written the omnipotent chairman a letter of admonition. Censorship
lies at the root of the terror states presently endangering America and
its right to exist as a nation philosophically founded entirely on voluntary
association and value-trading, not master-slave coercion.

Ahmed Ressam, the man who had attempted to orchestrate a calamity during
New Year's celebrations two years ago, had been but one agent of a movement
whose sole purpose is hatred of the productive and free, of the American
materialistic "Satan", whose success is derived from the fact
that this country recognizes the fundamental liberties which must be afforded
man to ensure his survival at the dignified, rational level prescribed
by his identity. United States border guards knew their job and its limits.
They knew that their task was to preserve freedoms, not to restrict them
due to personal disagreements or subjective perceptions of offense where
none was meant nor dealt.

It comes as no surprise, however, that Canadian border guards
were not the ones apprehending Ressam, although his incursion into the
United States was launched from Canada's soil and Canadian officials therefore
possessed ampler access to him. The service, either from governmental
mandate or intolerable caprices of individual employees or departments,
upholds the same ideological standpoint, censorship, which looms over
us at the terrorist threat of present days.

Fortunately, the degree to which the CCRA had pursued censorship was
far milder than that exhibited by Chairman Arafat. The articles were released
in three days and are presently en route to Toronto, where Dr. Brook will
be speaking on their significance. Nevertheless, this incident in its
present caliber has seen conduct that must remain off-limits for public
officials who must be stewards of our liberties, not inhibitors thereof.

The CCRA, if there remain vestiges of morality within it, must apologize
to the Ayn Rand Institute for the outrageously unjust detainment of its
materials and provide a comprehensive written guarantee, in the form of
a legislative or otherwise procedural document guaranteeing that such
transgressions of liberty will never again obstruct the intellectual quest
of defenders of human rights.